3 Things: Dylan Marron, Sharp & Jackson, and Michelle McNamara

Hi friends,

It's Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with my upcoming shows, one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting.

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
On the most recent episode of You're the Expert, Aparna Nancherla, Zhubin Parang, and Ashley Brooke Roberts discover the mysterious celestial bodies known as "brown dwarves" with help from Dr. Jackie Faherty. Link

On last night's episode of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, Wyatt visited Elgin, IL to learn about an innovative police program that asks officers to live in the neighborhoods they serve. But first, we tackled solar energy and how to solve the millennial housing crisis. I'm biased, but I think this was a great episode. Link

NEW YORK:

TODAY! Saturday, April 28 at 4 p.m. at Caveat. I'm hosting You Get A Spoon with a performance by Dylan Marron (Conversations with People Who Hate Me), magic by Nate Dendy, and music from Friends Who Folk. Link

Thursday, May 3 at 9 p.m. at Upright Citizens Brigade East. I'm doing standup on the great Fresh Out show, hosted by Ashley Brooke Roberts and Jim Tews. Link

Sunday, May 20 at 7 p.m. at Caveat. I'm hosting You're the Expert with comedians Nikki Glazer, Michelle Buteau, and Bowen Yang. We're going to be talking to a scientist who studies love and relationships. Don't miss this one! Link

My full schedule with all upcoming dates is online here.

This week's list

GREAT:
Dylan Marron's TED talk just came out this week. In an era where everything from pop culture to politics can be polarizing and heated, Dylan has found a way to create respect. "Empathy is not endorsement. Empathizing with someone you profoundly disagree with does not compromise your own deeply held beliefs and endorse theirs. It just means acknowledging the humanity of someone who was raised to think differently." The video is a must-watch. Dylan Marron: How I turn negative online comments into positive offline conversations


FUNNY:
Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson are correspondents on Comedy Central's The Opposition. They are naturally-gifted comedians who can get huge laughs out of something as simple as a pause or a turn to camera. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the two of them get their own show. In the meantime, they have created a masterpiece of a field segment. It's part Planet Earth parody, part investigative report into climate change, and all scathing satire of what the EPA's Scott Pruitt believes is "science." From speedos to jet skis to so many jokes about crab genitalia, this piece has it all. Can Climate Change Save These Crab Dicks?


INTERESTING:
Michelle McNamara spent the last years of her life obsessively researching and writing about the Golden State Killer. Her best-selling book, I'll Be Gone In The Dark, was published posthumously, but the renewed interest and attention she created seems to have led to the killer's arrest. If you're into true crime, the stories don't get much darker or more fascinating than this one. Michelle McNamara Died Pursuing the Golden State Killer. Her Husband, Patton Oswalt, Has Questions for Him. (And then, if you're like me and you end up going even deeper down the rabbit hole, this is a wild interview and profile of the daughter of another notorious serial killer, BTK.)


Thanks for reading! If you like these emails, please forward to a friend or come say hi at a live show. If someone forwarded you this email and you want to sign up, you cansubscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris

3 Things: Karen Duffin, Seagull Disasters, and Casey Jane Ellison

Hi friends,

It's Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with my upcoming shows, one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting.

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
On this week's episode of You're the Expert, Aparna Nancherla, Zhubin Parang, and Ashley Brooke Roberts learn about the mysterious celestial bodies known as "brown dwarves" from Dr. Jackie Faherty. Link

On last night's episode of Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, Wyatt looked at the cozy relationship between the NRA and Hollywood. Then we went to Birmingham, Alabama to see how the police department is trying to make amends for the civil rights era. I'm biased, but I think it's a fascinating look at the real world power of an apology. Check it out on HBO Go / HBO Now. If you missed episode 1, the whole thing is up on YouTube. 

BOSTON, MA:
TODAY! Saturday, April 21 at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Science Festival.  I'm doing two live You're the Expert shows, both open to the public (and free for MIT community thanks to generous funding from the DeFlorez Fund for Humor). Featuring Josh Sharp, Ken Reid, Fareeha Khan, Caitlin Durante, and two incredible professors. Link

NEW YORK:
Tuesday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. at Symphony Space. I'm on the comedic debate showUptown Showdown. The topic is "East Coast vs West Coast." I'm going to betray my native New York by revealing the lies we tell ourselves to think it's okay to live here. Come watch the audience react in horror. Link

Saturday, April 28 at 4 p.m. at Caveat. I'm hosting You Get A Spoon with a performance by Dylan Marron (Conversations with People Who Hate Me), magic by Nate Dendy, and music from Friends Who Folk. Link

My full schedule with all upcoming dates is online here.

This week's list

GREAT:
NPR's Planet Money always does a great job of making sense of seemingly impenetrable issues. One of their most recent episodes was about non-disclosure agreements. From tobacco lawsuits to Harvey Weinstein to Stormy Daniels, confidentiality agreements have been a part of giant news stories, but I'd never really understood how or why they work. Karen Duffin makes the story both enlightening and engaging. Definitely worth a listen.NDA Tell-All


FUNNY:
Nick Burchill was just trying to be a good guy. He was visiting friends in the Navy and wanted to bring them some local pepperoni. But things went terribly downhill as soon as he got to his hotel. I could not stop laughing at the story of Nick's disaster and his lifetime ban from the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll let you read the details for yourself. 40 Sea Gulls Wrecked His Hotel Room.17 Years Later, A Pepperoni Pardon


INTERESTING:
Casey Jane Ellison is both a modern artist and a standup comedian. Her best work straddles the uncomfortable divide between seriously engaging with issues in the modern art world and mercilessly skewering its conventions. In the first episode of her showTouching the Art, she gets a panel of art experts to give revealing answers on everything from whether art is meant to be accessible for the general public to the nature of celebrity.Touching the Art


Thanks for reading! If you like these emails, please forward to a friend or come say hi at a live show. If someone forwarded you this email and you want to sign up, you cansubscribe here.

Have a great day,
Chris

3 Things: Alice Captions, Bad Kid Jokes, and Seth Meyers

Hi friends,

It's Saturday! Every week, I send out an email with my upcoming shows, one thing I think is great, one thing that made me laugh, and one thing I found interesting.

Upcoming Shows

EVERYWHERE:
As of last night at 11:30 p.m., you can officially see the show I've been writing on for the past seven months. Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas lives on HBO Go, HBO Now, and the first episode is even up on YouTube if you can't borrow a friend's parent's login. Link

On this week's episode of You're the Expert, Aparna Nancherla, Baratunde Thurston, and Maeve Higgins learn the sexy secrets of giant pouched rats from Dr. Danielle Lee live at NatGeo. Link

WASHINGTON, D.C.:
TODAY! April 14 at 7 p.m. at National Geographic. I'm currently on a train speeding towards National Geographic for another You're the Expert taping with Negin Farsad, Jo Firestone, and 30 Rock's Scott Adsit. Only a few tickets left! Link

NEW YORK:
TOMORROW! April 15 at 7 p.m. at Caveat. You're the Expert is back at Caveat with SNL'sGary Richardson, Ashley Brooke Roberts, and Nadia Pinder. Link

Saturday, April 28 at 4 p.m. at Caveat. I'm hosting You Get A Spoon with a performance by Dylan Marron (Conversations with People Who Hate Me), magic by Nate Dendy, and music from Friends Who Folk. Link

BOSTON, MA:
Saturday, April 21 at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at the Cambridge Science Festival.  I'm doing two live You're the Expert shows, both open to the public (and free for MIT community thanks to generous funding from the DeFlorez Fund for Humor) Link

My full schedule with all upcoming dates is online here.

This week's list

GREAT:
Alice is nine years old. Every week, she writes in her own captions for The New Yorkercaption contest. And it turns out that Alice is the world's best captioner. Her lines are hysterical. Her cousin, Bess Kalb, is one of the funniest writers in television, so it runs in the family. When Bess tweeted out Alice's captions, they went viral. Please experience them for yourself: Alice Captions


FUNNY:
If we're talking kids and comedy, to me there is nothing funnier than Bad Kids Jokes. The site started because its anonymous curator wanted a place to post jokes that didn't make the cut from their day job. "I moderate jokes on a Kids Jokes website. A lot of joke submissions can't be published because they don't make any sense, the child got a genuine joke completely wrong, or they're a bit too rude for kids... so I publish them here instead." Bad Kids Jokes


INTERESTING:
It turned out to be an all kids-related edition of this newsletter, so why get off topic now? Seth Meyers had his second child this week and it was an adventure of a birth. Listen to him tell the story: Seth Meyers' Wife Gave Birth in Their Apartment Lobby (and then once you watched that, watch Seth interview Wyatt!)


Thanks for reading! If you like these emails, please forward to a friend or come say hi at a live show. If someone forwarded you this email and you want to sign up, you cansubscribe here.

Have a great weekend,
Chris